Friday, 21 April 2017

Budapest is...

High expectations. Every
neighbour and chubby bartender and fellow morning dog-walker giving
recommendations, predicting you’ll have the time of your life.

Waking up surrounded
by strangers in the same hostel room, travellers from cities you’ve only heard
of. And yet, you cross paths, each assigned an old metal bunk with what you can
only hope are fresh sheets.

Pints for pennies.

A capital city with
the air of a suburban village, bare boulevards and space to walk, talk, laugh,
dream.

Midnight boat rides;
parliament buildings that sparkle like the champagne swallowed. Corks float on
the river, lingers of a night worth remembering.

Decades of history,
sad, sad history, disguised with a breath of modernity. A museum making a
tourist attraction out of torture chambers. A Starbucks on the exact corner a man
was shot dead. A Burger King marking the spot tanks parked before their
massacre.

Constant calculator
use, checking and rechecking conversion rates to confirm that an entire meal
costs a quarter of what you would pay at home. It does.

Free walking tours
with guides that grin as they spill secrets that, for them, are obvious, guide
you down avenues they could walk with their eyes closed. You keep yours wide
open, staring at that which is at once so new for some and old for others.

Clubs in caves, dancing
with sweaty strangers to music that you don’t remember knowing the lyrics to. And
yet you scream every word.

Locals who smile
despite your obvious confusion, or perhaps because of your obvious confusion.
They point and gesture while you utter hello
instead of thank you, swap yes for no because that’s the first thing that comes to mind.

Late nights that
lighten into lazy mornings of mild headaches, fresh coffee and wandering
without direction.

Snippets of Vienna,
Paris, London, Barcelona: a city that borrows the best from others and moulds
it into its own.

Finding familiarity
in the unfamiliar. Planning another visit to remedy the first having ended. Having
the time of your life.